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How We Do It In our seminars you will not find Thirteen Incontrovertible laws of Excellence. You will not find abstract cliché- ridden management maxims to frame and put on your desk. And no step-by-step instructions on business planning. Instead you will discover about what to do, what not to do and why, based on critical decisions made by real people in exceptionally challenging circumstances: Moses, Henry VIII and Thomas Moore, Elizabeth I, Napoleon and Franklin Roosevelt. History as management consulting? “Nonsense,” you say? Not so fast. Successful CEOs are great leaders and historical examples of leaders probe more deeply into the problems of how to lead organizations than anything else. The Institute helps CEOs and their upper management teams solve business problems by introducing them to an anatomy of leadership based on research in cognitive approaches to leadership. What are the ideas of a leader? How have they been developed? How are they communicated, understood and not understood? How do key ideas affect the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of others? What are the common factors that make effective leaders? Over time, of course, things have changed. But the psychology and practice of leading large numbers of people in a hard-knuckled world is not one of them. As CEOs and senior managers, we all need to be ready for those moments when our leadership is on the line and the fate or fortune of others depends on what we do. How leaders emerge at any level of society has a pattern. No matter how different cultures are, the ways of power appear as a constant, whether in ancient Israel, Renaissance England, America during the Depression, or in corporate America. The pivotal people may bear different titles—king, emperor, consul, president, CEO, chairman of the board. But the powers that they hold, their influence over others, the new ground they break, the good they can do and the harm they can cause—all these have practical parallels in business. For your business, their advice could be the one piece of advice that makes all the difference—for you, as it did for them. The ingredients of leadership cannot be taught. They must be learned. At the Institute for Leadership Studies and History, you will learn from the experiences of great leaders of history. Too often experience is the name we give to our mistakes. But learning to lead through this type of personal experience is painful and, many times, unnecessary. In the film Patton George C. Scott tells his assembled troops that no one every won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the enemy die for his. Similarly it is not necessary for business leaders to make mistakes and learn from them. A simpler way is to look at what others have done right in the past and apply this in the present. One of the most effective ways of preparing for such challenges is by looking at what others have done when their own leadership was on the line. By examining the experiences of leaders in history and asking what they did and what they could have done and by wondering what you would have done yourself, you can better anticipate what should be done when faced with your own corporate leadership challenges. You will learn what leaders across history have all shared in common: the ability to be focused on their core purpose and ultimate goals as they are making sense and deciding what to change and what to keep, while always on the lookout for anomalies—warnings, surprises, new developments—and ask if they fit their world-view. If they do, then all is well. If not, they are prepared to take action. The Institute’s Seminar presents accounts such experiences. We witness ordinary people at extraordinary moments: how they guided their country and those around them through climactic events--and how you can do the same. Each study is about an individual who faced a turning point—and how each person led when it counted most. Unlike other approaches to corporate leadership that tend towards the theoretical, we work with CEOs and their management teams in providing practical and usable parallels between historical leaders and business executives. Part of our on-going research about leaders in history seeks to ask from them items of direct applicability to business leaders: What makes these leaders tick and what kept them going? How did they recognize winning qualities in others? Did they always know they were meant to take on their signature challenges? Did opportunities for success keep presenting themselves or come around only once? How did they overcome failure and adversity? And ultimately: How did they, at the top of their game, define their own success?
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Moses Elizabeth I Napoleon Bonaparte Franklin Roosevelt |
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MOSES | ELIZABETH I | NAPOLEON BONAPARTE | FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT © 2006 Institute For Leadership Studies & History, All Rights Reserved |
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